This is entirely true, but hard to avoid. When I talk to my non-freqent traveler friends, any mention of most of the places I travel to (for both work and vacation) usually gets a reaction of "Oh my God, you're going to ____? Isn't it really dangerous there? Aren't you scared?" Well, no, but you wouldn't necessarily know that it's really pretty safe unless you're already a very experienced traveler who realizes that media reports are usually vastly exaggerated. Same goes for the chances of being blown up on a plane or attacked by shrieking bands of Parisians (I've heard a lot of people mention both of these fears lately).

The only issue that did make me slightly hesitant to travel was the fear of repeating the monstrous inconvenience that I experienced over the September 11 period. I was supposed to be flying from Warsaw to NY on September 12, which of course didn't happen--I ended up stuck in Warsaw for five days and then stuck at CDG for another night. This was a major pain and I wouldn't want to deal with it again. Of course, if it did happen a second time, I'd probably be able to deal with it better.